Trouble Finds Me

The site equip.org gives a poorly put together post on arsenikoitai.


C. Wayne Mayhall, who wrote the article, starts with telling us about his meeting with the Reverend Robyn Provis of MCC in Minneapolis. By his account, she stated that the sure fire way to stop inter-faith dialogues is for Evangelicals to bring up the supposed "Clobber Passages," what she believes is an underhanded tactic. First, this is the opinion of one woman. I, and all who advocate gay-affirming theology from the standpoint the Bible is God-breathed, not only want to engage these passages, we HAVE to engage these passages. Second, I believe he only brings this conversation up is because he's implying gay affirming Christians try to avoid having to look at these passages.

This article is big on personality and little with explaining arsenokoitai. I'm asking my self now why am I even at this party?

He next quotes Theologians Douglas Stuart and Gordon D. Fee. Now Fee is a respected theologian giving a sound approach to the quote. What Mayhall might have missed is Fee admits arsenokoitai is 'almost never (?)' used to mean "homosexual" and Paul would have used other terminology if he in fact wanted to convey that. Reading Fee, who's a prominent member of the First Assembly of God Church, you come away with a sense, at least with the 1 Corinthians passage, that he knows it probably doesn't mean homosexuality as we understand it today, but his church saying; "Clearly the Bible states homosexual practice is sin" stops him from coming right out and saying it. I wish Fee would man up and be true to the Gospel instead of pandering to the prejudices of men that keep him in the contented place he has in the AoG church I once belonged to. Only you will answer for your cowardice Gordon. God forgive you.

Not to take away from Mel White being a relevant voice in the dialogue with the Church on homosexuality, but I really don't see why his opinion is here in what should be a hermeneutics discussion on arsenokoitai. He is not a legitimately credentialed "Theologian" as claimed in the article and the only reason I see White here is that it's of his opinion; "... the Greek word arsenokoitai, used for “homosexual” in 1 Corinthians 6:9, seems to refer to same-sex behavior," what the author of this article wants to establish.

Mayhall then quotes White in saying; "Some scholars believe Paul was coining a name to refer to customers of ‘the effeminate call boys’ (White is talking about Boswell).

White says a biased translator put the word "homosexual" in the 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy passages (he's talking about Bruce Metzger, translator and editor of the RSV Bible).

Stanton L. Jones is a Psychologist and is as much as a Theologian as White. As with White, I don't know why his opinion is here in a hermeneutics discussion. Asking an Evangelical Psychologist about asenokoitai is like asking an Evangelical pastry chef about malakoi.

I do give credit to Mayall for including a gay-affirming theologian with legitimate credentials and whose opinion should be the only one that matters here. Even this biased article had to admit; "Theologian John H. Elliott has written one of the most thorough studies of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 to date."

This ends on Gagnon giving his 2 cents.

This is yet another example of why of this blog dedicates so much time on Robert Gagnon. Over and over Gagnon will be cited in discussions like these as the final say.

This is my response to Gagnon's 4 "propositions."


1. Ironically, Gagnon is broadening the Levitical prohibition from it's unqualified nature of Moloch worship forbidden to the ancient Jews entering the land of Canaan to narrow the ambiguous nature of arsenokoitai.

Proposition 2 is deceptive. The accounts of arsenokoitai being used outside of vice lists are exploitative acts of homosexual rape or pederasty (Zeus raping Ganymede, Nass sexually exploiting Adam).

3. This is refuted by 1 Timothy's absence of malakoi. Koites when used as a suffix in compounds always denotes a penetrative aggressor, never the passive. A passive homosexual would not be prohibited here.

4. A circular argument (what Gagnon does often). Romans speaks on 1 Corinthians as prohibitive of homosexuality - 1 Corinthians echoes back to Romans prohibiting homosexuality.
Romans should be unpacked according to its own context. It also begs the question. If Romans prohibits homosexuality regardless of its idolatry context, why doesn't Paul use arsenokoitai in Romans?



Equip also has less-than-fair article writers like Joseph Gudel who wrote these little tidbits:

" ... even from a secular perspective, the unbiased reader is forced to admit that homosexuality is neither a healthy nor a natural lifestyle.

"... influencing children at a very early age is part of the "gay rights agenda."

"It is extremely revealing to note that almost every pro-gay group within the church shares one thing in common: they reject the Bible as being fully the Word of God [italics his]."

Nope, no personal bias from Mr. Gudel here.

I also commented (RQC) on this site and my reply button was yanked away, stopping me from furthering the debate by making me look like I stopped responding. A Catamite is not a type of "homosexual." The closest you can come with catamite to any 'type' of homosexuality is a boy being feminized for sexual purposes or as an insult you are one to a grown man.

Brent Bolin wrote an excellent post on the error of people like Bruce who think Strong's Concordance should interpret the Bible.

Connie Fell On The Icy Sidewalk Again

The blogger Lyndon Unger (AKA Mennoknight) wrote about my favorite word arsenokoites. 

He starts the post by mentioning Gagnon (Gagnon doesn't believe the Bible is completely inspired, especially the writings of Paul, but that's glossed over by anti-gay Bible believers for the sake of embracing Gagnon), "Brownsville Revival" leftover Michael Brown, THAT Mohler and "Fake On-Line Degree" James White who have all been talked about on my own fine little site. He then goes into insulting my comrades in arms in this homosexuality and the Bible debate by saying they're part of a “Christian” QUILTBAG mafia (I'll make that my costume for Halloween). He has my man Brownson's book cover on a post for some reason, a book he never read (I can't really knock him for that because I didn't read it either), and bad stock photos that he thinks drive his points home.

Was the Bible unreliably translated by uninspired men who tried their best or other translators who let their bias bleed into what they translated? Absolutely. There isn't a scholar on either side of this debate who would say otherwise. Was Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit in what he wrote? Absolutely. We aren't talking about the words of Paul, we're talking about what happened to those words once they left Paul and fell into the hands of others with the book of Revelations saying what will be the consequences for those who change those words.

I'll just respond to what he wrote on his 5 points and leave you to go to his blog with what I was responding to. 

1. Saul, Paul to his Gentile friends, was a Pharisee who became an Apostle to the GENTILES (Galatians 2:8). That’s rather important to this all. Actually, Paul did bow to Greek social convention with terminology and he says so in Galatians 2:15. He used Greek slang and the ironic example is "koitai" which is vulgar slang for f*cking (Paul goes vulgar slang again in Philippians 3:8 saying the Greek slang for "sh*t").

Paul never saw himself as a lofty prophet, just the opposite (1 Corinthians 15:9, Ephesians 3:8).
The fact Paul DOESN'T use any Greek word for a homosexual man or even the slang word for a lesbian (Tribas) common in Paul's day (tribas) proves MY point Paul never meant to condemn homosexuality. If he did, he would first go to words that would have been absolutely clear he was talking about homosexuals (Greek slang Kinaidhos and Kolombaras for passive and masculine homosexuals) and not the mysterious Arsenokoite or the "I have an endless slew of meanings" word Malakoi. Remember, the Hellenistic Jews hearing Paul were as fluent in koine Greek as the Gentiles sitting beside them.

When this blogger writes; "The Spirit wrote in harmony with what he had previously written (which is important to remember)," He's only talking about Romans in the context of idolatry (Romans 1:22,23), that nasty habit man had of worshiping images of Goddesses and animals since he was created.

Now here is why this blogger and almost all anti-gay apologists who breathe think the word means "homosexuals." They say Paul got it from Leviticus 18:22 and to them, this is their "Gotcha!" moment. But this is the problem. If Leviticus doesn't condemn "homosexuality," neither will 1 Corinthians and you can put enough doubt with their claim Leviticus condemns homosexuality as a general rule by going to the actual Hebrew of the Leviticus verse that shows it's not so clear-cut as they want it to be. He links to the verse in the Hebrew that proves nothing and a follow-up link to the poor translation of the verse in the same Hebrew that proves the same nothing. I'm glad he brings up Numbers 31:17-18 and Judges 21:11-12 because it shows the variations of 'arseno' (male) and 'koiten' (beds) found in other places in the Bible have nothing to do with homosexuality, but in fact referenced hetero sex, MY point. I don't picture the Jewish believers pulling the gentile believers aside and saying; "O.K. So Paul is trying to tell you he's getting 'arsenokoite' from one of our ancient books you've never heard of. Thank G-d you had us explain it to you because how would you have known otherwise??? Now pass me the pork ribs I couldn't eat before."

Another blogger made a good point saying; "The idea (Paul got the word from Leviticus) is based upon the existence of the words αρσενος κοιτην in that verse, but this is flawed scholarship. Since αρσενος means male, and κοιτην means bed, ANY Greek sentence that mentions a male and a bed will have forms of those two words in it. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are not the only verses in the Septuagint containing those words."



"Not all scholars are created equal…"

 …and not all are honest... including bloggers like yourself who thinks all Pentecostals are heretics.



2. What's funny is Unger starts off his 2nd point by saying; "The Bible decides what the Bible means by the terms it uses, not some pagan writers who come centuries later... "
Yet who does he go to later down on his point? Pagan writings that used the word closest to the time of Paul prove the opposite of what he's saying. The Sibylline Oracles puts the word in the category of SOCIAL injustice.

[This is how it works. If you can't find a context of a Bible word in other places of the Biblical narrative, arsenokoite is put in a vice list by Paul that gives it no context, you then go outside the Bible that uses the word at the closest time of it's Bible usage. There isn't one Bible scholar who doesn't do this]

Now this is where the blog author tries to fool you.

He first links to a part of Aristides Apology 13 in saying it's condemning "homosexuality," but this is only talking about Greek Gods who transform themselves into animals to lay with men AND women. It says more about bestiality or God/human sexual relations than homosexuality. Aristides wrote this to the notorious homosexual Emperor Hadrian as a goodwill gesture in explaining the worship practices of those in Hadrian's empire. It would have been stupid to write a condemnation of homosexuality, what Unger believes Aristides is doing here, to the gay emperor who might have pulled a Harod with John the Baptist act on him. This is all shown by Unger in his further examples below of putting what uninspired writers have to say on the level of the Holy Spirit-breathed inspired writers of the Bible, a favorite practice of Ungers' crowd because they expect and get the hatred of homosexuality from the writings of Catholic Church fathers.

He then says; "That would suggest that the usage of the term is in harmony with the previous uses of the term in the Bible (1 Cor. 6:9 & 1 Tim. 1:10) as well as outside the bible (Sibylline Oracles 2:70-78, the Epistle of Ignatius to the Tarsians [which is a citation of 1 Cor. 6:9], The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians [again, a citation of 1 Cor. 6:9], the Acts of John 36, Clement of Alexandria’s Instructor 3.11 [again, citation of 1 Cor. 6:9])."

Well yeah, it would put the term in the harmony it was intended, but the Epistle of Ignatius or Polycarp he names give no indication it's about homosexuality. It's just another word put in their vice lists like with Paul's. The Acts of John 36 text reads as; " ...so also the poisoner, sorcerer, robber, swindler, and arsenokoitēs, the thief and all of this band…” To put "homosexual" between 'robber,' 'swindler,' and 'thief' breaks the flow in the verse, but sex traders (for profit), also linked to the arsenokoitai word, would make perfect sense here. Notice Unger doesn't bring up other Christian writings like The Epistle of Barnabas who uses the word for pederasty or John the Faster who uses it for oral/anal sex between men and women? Unger will leave these and other sources out because they disprove his entire argument it was unanimous in the Church record the word means 'homosexual.'

The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae gives nothing on the word other than where you can find its placement in a vice list from Christian and pagan sources.

Boswell wrote:

"It was during the 4th Century the word became confused and lost its original significance, so by the 6th Century it was used to designate activities as different as child molesting and anal intercourse between husband and wife."

If Unger really cared about the Jewish perspective he's always bringing up, he'd know the Babylonian Talmud uses the word in the context of only pederasty with Maimonides doing the same. What? Did he forget to mention that to you? The Talmud is only second to the Torah itself to the Jews even today.



Nothing this blog writer has linked or written or pointed out what others have written indicates that this word means a homosexual or homosexuality as it stands alone, it just isn't there.

3. "I don't know of one scholar who thinks Paul was; “likely referencing an earlier Scripture about men sleeping with people that weren’t their wives.”  

It was neither Helminiak nor Boswell who make it about prostitution and pederasty). I think he's just throwing names out of gay-affirming scholars in wanting you to think he's read their books and found them unconvincing.

I agree with him here in that neither Moicheia nor Porneia would be terms used by Paul to mean homosexual sex. 


4. Number 4 says nothing.

"I've convinced myself I'm right, so I must be right. Find me more cheap-looking stock photos!"

 - Lyndon Unger.


5. Unger is right and the guy he's refuting on Facebook is wrong. Malakoi (lit; softie) ISN'T in 1 Timothy, but again this proves MY point in grand style by going back to my two points I've put on my blog before.

If arsenokoita' is the "aggressor" in a homosexual relationship and malakoi the "passive" partner in 1 Corinthians, why is malakoi absent in 1 Timothy? An arsenokoitai would be missing the other half of his relationship. If they are a word pair, no other vice list with either malakoi or arsenokoitai, and there are many with malakoi prior to Paul. Many with arsenokoitai after Paul, and never are they paired together.

If 'arsenokoitai' can be the catch-all word for both sides of a homosexual relationship, why does Paul bother using malakoi in 1 Corinthians? "Koites" was used centuries before Paul's usage and when used as a suffix in compounds it always indicated the penetrative aggressor, never the passive. That means it can't apply to both partners in an act and cannot be a catch-all term for all homosexual activity.

Now, what 5 points again? The blog author needs to take his blog title to heart or take up long-haul trucking because he isn't good at this.



  

Jewish hipsters think homophobes should Lign in drerd un bakn beygls.

"1946" Movie In 7D

A doc is coming out called "1946." The filmmaker shows how Bruce Metzger, interpreter, and editor of the RSV and NRSV translations of the Bible, thought maybe putting the word "homosexual" in the translations might not have been such a great idea from a letter Metzger sent to a seminarian student Metzger thought would never see the light of day. The problem I have is the filmmaker makes it sound like it was an honest mistake. I know how Metzger felt about homosexuality along with several of the interpreters on his panel which shows it wasn't an honest mistake with those on his panel either going along with it or staying silent with their objections. They had the chance to change that mistake with the NRSV, but didn't even when they started to see the damage it was doing with Christians now being able to use the word "homosexual" for the first time. Further proof of this is that Metzger and his panel had over 70 years of chances to publicly say they were wrong and never did.

The anti-gay are already jumping all over this by saying; "So what? The descriptives of homosexuality in past translations finally gave the word "homosexual" its proper place in this one translation." 

My take:

In most cases in the earliest Bible translations that we have, the verse in a translation is carried over from prior translations. If a mistake was made with the meaning of the verse in that Bible's translation and is not caught and corrected by the translators, that mistake will be in the next translation and the one after with the only difference being the wording of that era the translation was written in. 

If we bypass the earliest translations of arsenokoite and go straight to Leviticus, where Paul got the word from, we can find out Paul's intent.

Leviticus narrows down male homosexuality to only an idolatrous Canaanite worship practice. The word is wrong in Metzger's translation because the descriptives in prior translations of the word are wrong. 

The 1940's-50s saw homosexuals as mentally sick child predators who were institutionalized and routinely lobotomized. THIS was the world Metzger saw homosexuals in in his time. That bias informed his own translations, that he would later question, with putting arsenokoite as "homosexual." A word stamp that would be used by future generations in the Church to condemn male and female homosexuals who just needed that one word to do it with.

I had a strong presence in YouTube comments. One thing I can say in all honesty out of the endless people I've engaged and debated, who've ranged from pastor, priest, and pew sitter, is that give it time, their debating with me always goes from the Bible to other issues, the real core of the problem they have with homosexuality.

They find homosexuality disgusting or at some level distasteful is what it really boils down to for most when they give up hiding behind Scripture. They love going to bogus science studies of disease and mortality rates as a reason to hate me. Me going to an early grave racked with disease is a reason to have a problem with me? If anything, that should be making you show me the love of Christ MORE, considering my short and miserable existence on Earth. Or how all humans would die out if we found ourselves on a mysterious island with no heterosexuals to procreate. Like we were somehow air-lifted there in our sleep by unknown entities or all procreation would just stop if all heterosexuals just evaporated off the face of the Earth one day. Statistically, a society can't be all straight or all gay in orientation. I guess bisexuals would also not exist.

You do know that gay men and women still have their working sexual organs, right? So we could still be able to re-populate the Earth if we wanted to, but we would do it by careful design. We would also be better at procreation than you would because each child will be WANTED and not by accident, making abortions nonexistent. Isn't that what you want? 

They only do this "It would end the human race" scenario with gays and not heterosexuals who might, for instance, be genetically sterile because of a nuclear winter or a mass genetic screw-up where only males are born (not a problem for all gay men). They also don't see the problem that being celibate for the Kingdom, what Paul wished we all did, that also would bring about our extinction. 

All this is very telling and backs what I've always believed. The Bible comes in second with why they have a homosexuality issue. The Bible is the backup they need to justify how strongly they feel against homosexuality, it's a reference, not the reason. They think the Bible is somehow saying to them; "I have your back with whatever else you have on these perverts." For those who say I'm driven by my homosexuality to read the Bible how I read it, aren't you reading the Bible through the lens of your own heterosexuality? Your bias would be stronger than mine because it was drilled into you starting at birth (blue is for boys and pink is for girls) and reaffirmed to you every day of your life.

All I care about is the Word of the eternal and living God to guide me on this subject and I don't need to go anywhere else. Too bad you people can't say the same.

Koitaiarseno

There is a misconception currently held by some Christians that Paul coined the word ἀρσενοκοῖται from Lev. 20:13 as found in the Greek Septuagint (LXX), which is the oldest translation of the Hebrew Bible.:

Και ος αν κοιμηθη μετα αρσενος κοιτην γυναικος βδελυγμα εποιησαν αμφοτεροι θανατουσθωσαν ενοχοι εισιν·

The idea is based upon the existence of the words αρσενος κοιτην in that verse, but this is flawed scholarship. Since αρσενος means male, and κοιτην means bed, ANY Greek sentence that mentions a male and a bed will have forms of those two words in it. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are not the only verses in the Septuagint containing those words, as seen below.

και νυν αποκτεινατε παν αρσενικον εν παση τη απαρτια και πασαν γυναικα ητις εγνωκεν κοιτην αρσενος ζωγρησατε αυτας

πασαν την απαρτιαν των γυναικων ητις ουκ οιδεν κοιτην αρσενος ζωγρησατε αυτας

And now kill every male among all children. But every woman who has not known the bed of a male, take them alive. All the women children who have not gone to the bed of a male, take them alive.

Num. 31:17-18

και ουτος ο λογος ον ποιησετε παν αρσενικον και πασαν γυναικα γινωσκουσαν κοιτην αρσενος αναθεματιετε

και ευρον απο των κατοικουντων ιαβις γαλααδ τετρακοσιας νεανιδας παρθενους αι ουκ εγνωσαν ανδρα εις κοιτην αρσενος και ηγον αυτας εις την παρεμβολης εις σηλω η εστιν εν γη χανααν

And this is the word that you will do: every male, and every woman who has known the bed of a male, you will destroy. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young virgins who had not known a man in the bed of a male, and the brought them into the camp into Shiloh which is in the land of Canaan.

Judges 21:11-12

In each of these four verses, the phrase “bed of a male” is in relation to women who have not known that location, that is, women who were virgins.

In Leviticus, however, we have a different set up. Lev. 20:13 includes the phrase μετα αρσενος κοιτην γυναικος.

In this verse, αρσενος (a male) is preceded by μετα (with), while κοιτην (a bed) is paired with the genitive γυναικος (of a woman). This agrees exactly with the Hebrew text, that is, with a male (in) a woman's bed.

Ἀρσενοκοῖται, on the other hand, is NOT derived from the word for bed, but from the verb meaning “lie down.” This verb, κειμαι, in some of its forms, uses the construction κοιτ-. Therefore ἀρσενοκοῖται does not mean male beds, but rather, those who lie with males.

From: hoperemains.com 

Missing Lesbians on Milk Cartons

Two simple and irrefutable points that blow out the water arsenokoitai is the aggressor (man) partner in a gay sexual union and malakoi the passive (girl) partner believed to be condemned in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:9.

1. If 'arsenokoitai' is the "aggressor" in a homosexual relationship and 'malakoi' the "passive" partner in 1 Corinthians, why is malakoi absent in 1 Timothy? An arsenokoitai would be missing the other half of his relationship. If they are a word pair, no other vice list with either malakoi or arsenokoitai, and there are many with malakoi prior to Paul and many with arsenokoitai after Paul, ever have them paired together.

2. If 'arsenokoitai' can be the catch-all word for both sides of a homosexual relationship, why does Paul bother using malakoi in 1 Corinthians? "Koites" was used centuries before Paul's usage and when used as a suffix in compounds it always indicated the penetrative aggressor, never the passive. That means it can't apply to both partners in an act and cannot be a catch-all term for all homosexual activity.

Neither one of us is a malakoi dumbass. 

I'm lost. Can you point me to the nearest gas station?

Baby Got Baby Back Ribs

No decent exegete still sees the Sodom story as anything but a story about a debased people lacking hospitality that was a life-or-death situation in the ancient world. Most people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the Sodom narrative being about hospitality, like I once did, instead of homosexuality because they go by a modern-day understanding of what hospitality is.


Even with the Roman 1 verses, anti-gay scholars can't really take homosexuality outside of its idolatry context. Hence, they just meld the two together, what the text doesn't do.

I now want to answer the argument that many sincerely want to be answered. The argument goes that Paul "made up" the Greek word arsenokoite in 1 Corinthians with compounding words 1 in Leviticus 20:13 ("A man shall not lay with a male") and sticking it in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 with what looks like it's a clear-cut case Paul is condemning homosexuality with cleverly using Leviticus.

Correcting the Leviticus passage has a dual purpose. 

It shows Paul did not intend to make a general condemnation of homosexuality with the compound word arsenokoite and it destroys the argument Jesus didn't need to say anything about homosexuality because Leviticus tells you how He felt about homosexuality already.

There is no question that the Leviticus verses were written in the context of the idolatry practices of the Canaanites. Leviticus 20:2,3 gives you that context with that same context then being carried over to Deuteronomy in discussing the "Quedesh" priesthood that isn't named in the Leviticus verses, but are the men Leviticus is referencing, and that if Paul referenced them, he was referencing homosexuality in the context of only their idolatry practices.

Now I will approach the Leviticus verse as if it wasn't in the context of idolatry because that is the only argument that can be made to carry this verse as a general prohibition of homosexuality to the present day.

To start, read what I say as to why Leviticus is only in the context of idolatry and then go to what I say about the word itself (you'll find argument after argument from me on this blog refuting the claim arsenokoite means a homosexual).

Only if we can understand the exact Hebrew wording in Leviticus can we figure out what Paul was trying to convey with his new compound word arsenokoite if that was really what he was doing 2.

The literal Hebrew reads like this:

Weth-zakhar lo tishkav mishkevey ishshah

Translated into literal English it reads; "with a male you shall not lie the lyings of the woman 3."

Now since Leviticus 20:13, like 18:22, is only directed at Israeli males and not women, a clear-cut and simple reading prohibiting all male homosexuality would read; "Weth-zakhar lo tishkav" (with a male you shall not lie), but instead we have mishkevey ishshah (lyings of the woman) put into the verse. English translators of the verse also place in "as with," making the verse, wrongly, read; "with a male you shall not lie as with a woman" Translators inserted "as with" instead of "the lyings of a woman" because "lyings of a woman" was not a term they understood clearly because it's found nowhere else in the Bible. Now it can be said that the translators were only trying to fill in the blanks by putting in "as with" so the reading of it flows, but the author of Leviticus meant it to read as it reads. Besides, there are other places in the Bible where the two words 'as with' are used, it's just not used here.

Now if we figure out what the term "lyings of a woman" is getting at, it will shed light on the actions of the males being discussed that are prohibited.

Like I said, Mishkevey Ishsha (lyings of a woman) is found nowhere else in the Bible, but if you go to Numbers 31:18, we find Mishkav Zakhar 4 (lyings of a male) with what's coming from the male perspective of penetrating a woman. So "lyings of a woman" in turn must mean it's coming from the perspective of the one being penetrated.

We next go to the Talmud which further explains the saying. There are only two ways a woman can have sex according to the Rabbis (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 54a), vaginal and anal. They saw "lyings of a woman" as either one or the other. Since obviously, two men cannot have vaginal sex, the only other act it is talking about is anal sex, a prohibition to God's Israeli males to separate them from those pagan (cult anal sex) practices of the Canaanites with the "Quedesh" in their land the Jews were entering, what is easily proven by the historical record I showed in the footnotes of this post.


In my first arsenokoite post I show a distinction between the two types of males who are forbidden to be penetrated in Leviticus 20:13 with the word 'zakhar,' a boy (pederasty) or a male cult priest with what would be an act of idolatry. In the CONTEXT it is given in Leviticus (Moloch worship), the prohibition is saying an Israeli man should not lie with cult Canaanite priests.

 
Also, most translators make the word "woman" (ishshah) which is also translated as "wife" in the verse into the incorrect gender word "female" (neqevah) that broadens the verse to make it even more of a general prohibition on "homosexuality" when it shouldn't.

Knowing now the correct Hebrew wordings, we can correctly translate Leviticus 20;13 as;  

An Israeli man of age shall not have anal sex with Zakhar (a male of some type of religious or age distinction) in his wife's beds. 

This is the correct literal translation and it's still ambiguous because you don't know if it's condemning idolatry with the "Quedesh" or condemning anal sex with an underage male in the marriage bed of a male Israelite and his wife. Either way, it narrows down the prohibition from the common belief the verse says;

A man should not have sex with the a man as with a woman.

Anti-gay scholars with the verse like to dismiss the argument from pro-gay apologists who say homosexual orientation was not known to the writers of Leviticus, but these verses were conveyed by God who DID know of homosexual orientation. The problem is God didn't go above and beyond the restrictive act of anal 5 sex in condemning the love a man has for another man and prohibiting female homosexuality. You won't find it in Leviticus; in turn, you won't find it with Jesus or Paul in his use of arsenokoite.

This is my counterargument to those who take Leviticus out of its proper idolatry context and take it to mean a binding prohibition of homosexuality today.

1. Yale Bible scholar Dale Martin points out the errors that can occur in compounding ancient words and expecting them to have the same meaning in future eras.

2. I purposely leave out the discussion on Paul's Greek Septuagint translation of Leviticus here because it gives no further depth of what the Hebrew is saying. 

It was 1000 years from the Torah before the Rabbis, an elite, wrote on the Torah and what Leviticus tried to convey. Unlike the writers of the New Testament, the Rabbis in their commentaries never claimed to be inspired men, so if Paul was reaching to Leviticus to come up with arsenokoite, laws he said are dead to us, he was an inspired man quoting uninspired men with how they interpreted the Leviticus passages with what was one of SEVERAL interpretations they were never unanimous in agreeing on then or even today with the Rabbinical. 

3. I won't discuss the term "abomination" (to'ebah) because no matter the degree, it's still putting a taboo on what action is taking place in the verse.

4. Mishkevey in the singular. This is one of the times zakhar can be translated to just be 'man' when normally ish would be used. Remember when zakhar is used in the Hebrew Bible, 90% of the time it's in reference to a male, human, or animal that serves some type of religious purpose. Because zakhar is so close in proximity to ish in the Levitical verse, zakhar wouldn't mean just 'man' when ish does the job.

5. Various arguments have been put forth as to why only the specific act of anal sex is so strongly prohibited to an Israeli male. Some of these arguments are the prohibiting of "mixing of seed" (semen with menstrual blood), the wasting of semen that would have been detrimental to the procreation of a people, or what would be seen as a disrespect of the sacredness of the penis with uncleanliness (semen with feces). Israeli men would put one hand on their penis to swear a promise, similarly like a hand is placed on a Bible in a court of law swearing to tell the truth. Paul visits the sacredness of the penis in Romans verse 27 verse as I showed when he talks about the "Galli" priesthood with their practice of cult castration.

Arsenokoitai

1 Corinthians 6: 9-10:

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate (malakoi), nor abusers of themselves with mankind (arsenokoitē), nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

1 Timothy 1:9-10:

Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind (arsenokoitēs), for menstealers (slave traders), for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other things that is contrary to sound doctrine."

Arsenokoites (ἀρσενοκοίτης). Said to be a compound word made up by Paul taken from the Septuagint (LXX) reading of Leviticus 20:13: ἄῤῥην/ἄρσην [arrhēn/arsēn] and κοίτην [koitēn].



'Malakoi' is believed to be a passive homosexual while arsenokoites is believed to be the aggressive homosexual by so-named "Bible Conservatives." If one word goes with the other to emphasize both sides of a gay relationship, why is 'malakoi' left out of 1 Timothy? If arsenokoite is the catch-all word to mean all homosexuality, why is 'malakoi' used in 1 Corinthians? "Koites" was used centuries before Paul's usage and when used as a suffix in compounds it always indicated the penetrative aggressor, never the passive. That means it can not apply to both partners in a sexual act and cannot be a general term for all homosexual activity. No other writing puts arsenokoites next to malakoi as a word pair. Each is used independently of the other in all other instances.

What we see with Paul, as read by "conservative" exegetes, is the stereotypical "one has to be the female" supposition of a homosexual coupling by anti-gay proponents who believe all homosexual couplings must mimic the male penetrating the female paradigm of a heterosexual coupling. This bears no semblance to most current homosexual relationships. In other words, IF Paul had aggressive males with passive males in mind when writing 1 Corinthians, it can only be applied to Paul's Roman contemporaries who were free men past a certain age in Roman society who strictly played the role of aggressive male (penetrator) with those beneath him in Roman societal standing.

Also, If Paul meant to convey a condemnation of all homosexuality to the audience who was at the time reading his 1 Corinthian and 1 Timothy letters, they would have not gotten that meaning from what he wrote in those passages. The only homosexuality they knew was one of exploitation, pederasty, or injustice. The people reading Paul would have understood the word in those contexts. Paul indeed had access to words to convey a passive and aggressive homosexual (Greek slang; kinaidhos/kolombaras) or even a word for a lesbian (tribas) that is completely absent in any word form with what was popular and understood words of his day with homosexuality that would have left no question to his audiences what he meant. If Paul wanted to condemn homosexuals in Corinthians and Timothy, why did he feel he had to reach to the Jewish Code, a holiness code that he says is a curse to us (Romans 6:14, 7:6, 2 Cor 3:6, Galatians 2:21, 3:23-25, 5:14) that's also silent on lesbianism to do it? The Greek had no equivalent words for homosexual acts of idolatry. Since Leviticus puts the homosexual acts of the Canaanite Qadeshim* in only idolatry, Paul compounded words from Leviticus to make a new word that gives the meaning of the homosexuality he only wanted to speak of, homosexual acts of idolatry. 

Even if the homosexuality of Leviticus is taken out of idolatry, the passages are still only concerned with anal penetrative sex according to the Rabbis (Sifra, Qedoshim 10:11; bSan 54a–b). The Hebrew expression mishkav zakhar denotes only penetrative anal sex; "When one male copulates another male... from THE MOMENT of (anal) penetration... both are punishable... " (Rambam, Hilkhot Issurei Bi'ah 1:14).

Sibylline Oracle 2.70-77 (the earliest use of 'arsenokoitai' apart from Paul from a pagan source) lists it within its injustices category and not in its sexual category; "Do not steal seeds... Do not arsenokoitein, do not betray information..." Acts of John 36 place it with economic injustices; "...robber, defrauder, arsenokoitai, the thief and all of his band..." Porphyrius places it between theft and witchcraft (Contra Christianos 023 88.13).


Arsen is placed with economic injustices by Theophiles of Antioch in his treatise addressed to Autolychus.

Koitai, in the Attic form arrenokoitas, was found on an inscription of a gate leading to the city of Thessaloniki (Greek Anthology 9.686.5.):

"...barbaron ou tromeeis, ouk arrenas arrenokoitas" ("you need not dread the barbarian nor the male arrenokoitai)." Public kidnappers for the purpose of trafficking (shanghaied) is more of a realistic placement here than "male homosexual" since homosexual practice was not forbidden in Thessaloniki.

1 Timothy patterned the last half of his sin list on the Decologue (the last 6 Commandments of the 10 Commandments). Timothy extended his adultery prohibition to include "boy raping" with arsenokoitai, a common practice in Christian sin lists that pattern themselves on the Decalogue. The specified "raping of boys," not male/male sex, was an extension of the 7th commandment along with; "Do not have sex with married women," "Do not have sex with prostitutes." The Didache uses the word παιδοφθορήσεις (boy-raper) as an extention of "Do not commit adultery." A word trick popular at the time with Christian sin lists commenting on acts of adultery at the time with no other mention of homosexuality.

The word is used to show a powerful aggressor raping a weaker one. Some translations do in fact put arsenokoitai as "boy rapers." (Jerusalem, German, "molesters." Dutch NBG translation of 1951, "knapenschenders" ("boy-molesters").

In the Apology of Aristides 13, Fragmenta 12, 9-13.5.4, 'arsenokoitai' refers to Zeus abducting and raping a boy named Ganymede. In Hippolitus Refutatio chapter 5, Nass, a Satanic being, is said to have had Adam sexually "like a boy." Babylonian Talmud, b. Sanhedrin 54a puts arsenos koiten in the context of only boy sex. Maimonides on the verse states it's about: 'child corrupting' (Moses Maimonides "The Guide for the Perplexed" p. 376). In the Babylonian Talmud Nid-dah 13b talks about "sporting with children," an explicit reference to pederasty. 

Conclusion: Paul would not have used 'arsenekoitai' to convey a condemnation of male homosexuality with the absence of female homosexuality. 

Nor condemn male homosexuality beyond the prohibition of anal sex that took place within the idolatry practices of the Canaanites.

It looks like the word can mean either a pederast action, possibly exploitive action, or if only going to Paul's compounding of words in Leviticus, homosexual acts of idolatry.

 

 

So no, arsenokoite is not a "Homosexual" nor a prohibitive of "Homosexuality."

*"If a man [ish] lies with a male [zakhar] as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination (Lev 20:13)." 

Two different types of males are in this verse [a man is called an 'ish,' followed by who he is not to lie down with, a male called a 'zakhur']. Note; ish is not placed with ish (man/man) or zakhur with zakhur (male/male) in the verse. 

Only two distinctions make a zakhur male, not an ish man. One is age, a male boy not yet a man ('zakan' is "beard," denoting age. 'zakayn' is "elder" in Hebrew). The other is a male having a religious distinction. Not excluded from this are priestly males (Assinu/Qadesh, also mentioned in Deuteronomy) in the land of Canaan who hold a function in religious idolatry prohibited to Jewish men whose cult practices involved homosexuality in the service of Moloch worship. My own belief.